they have memorials and museums to them. i would like for us to start a movement and flood the internet with our ideas. >> we have a challenge. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> you're watching c-span3. american history tv on c-span3, created by america's cable television companies. today we're brought to you by these television companies who provide american history tv to viewers as a public service. >> in an event hosted by the history makers, former spelman college president johnetta cole and prairie view a&m president ruth simmons discuss the history of african-americans in education and the importance of historically black colleges and universities. the history makers provided the video for this program.

suzanne: with me today, our distinguished guests. dr. johnetta b. cole, president and chair of the board of the national council of negro women and former president of spelman college and bennett college, the only two hbcu's dedicated to educating african-american women. and dr. ruth simmons, president of prairie view a&m university, an historic hbcu hbcu. she also served formerly as president of both brown university and smith college. it's a pleasure to have you both here today with us. you have made such a significant contribution to the field of education. we have invited v.p. franklin from the university of california-riverside to give a

short presentation on the history of blacks in education. >> really happy to be a part of the 20th anniversary of the history makers, and i just wanted to say thank you to miss richard son. i'm glad to be a part of it at the beginning and here at the end to discuss the background, historic background for higher education for african-americans. african-americans have placed great faith in education in general, literally and formal schooling in particular because of their oppressed conditions of american society. for african-americans, education was important to maintaining their freedom. as a slave worker of american society, learning to read and write was illegal, and those who obtained literacy or assisted in literacy training could be severely punished. however, many a slave children learn to read and write when white children were being

taught those skills. and adults often learned to read, and when they participated in religious services, they were entrusted to learning to read. the outbreak of the civil war in 1871 felt emancipated african-americans began arriving by the hundreds of thousands behind union lines and make-shift classrooms were set up to teach literacy during and following the war. there was a whole race of people trying to learn to read and write. black and white missionaries came to the south and caught in the freedom schools that were open in all of the southern states, and following the war, and the en francement of african-american men in 1870, one early objective of black voters was the establishment of the public school systems throughout the southern states. the first public schools in

many places were the freedom schools that had been open during the war, when northern missionaries and teachers began to leave, leave the south, various religious denominations made arrangements to open normal schools for teacher training institutions, where african-americans would be trained as teachers for these newly established public schools. the american missionary association, founded in 1846, supported primarily by the congregational church, opened its first school in hampton, virginia, in 1861. eventually they opened scores of freedom schools and settled 500 teachers, 2/3 of them women, to work in the south. the opening of the public schools focused on secondary schools, on normal schools that eventually many of them became the historically black college

and university, mississippi, hampton institute much virginia, kentucky, atlanta, university, in georgia and many others. the a.m.e. church took over college in ohio in 1863 and it soon served the dual purpose of training teachers and educating ministers for the church. other black denominations also opened normal schools and seminaries following the war. howard normal and theological institute was opened in washington, d.c. by the american missionary association in 1866, and general oliver otis howard founded the normal and preparatory department in 1867. howard university's theological department was funded by the

american missionary association beginning in 1870. currently the second number of largely historically black colleges and universities traced their origins to 189 ork the original moral act was cast in 1872 between 1962 and called for the opening of land grant colleges in every state for agricultural and mechanical education, funded by the federal government through the sale of land in the western territories taken from the native population. the second morel act called on states with dual systems of education, one for white, one for blacks, to open or designate one educational institutions for white and one institution for blacks as the black college. eventually the land grant colleges for whites became agricultural and engineering schools. texas a&m, alabama a&m, and

state university, university of arkansas, purdue university. the land grant colleges for african-americans in the south, however, were victimized by the separate and unequal funding practices in the southern states and only became teacher training institutions to provide elementary and elementary school teach forse the separate black public schools in those states. such as kentucky state university, southern university alabama, al corn senate mississippi, north carolina @and others. a small numbers beginning in the antebellum period, most college educated african-americans before 1960 received their undergraduate training and degrees from historically black colleges. professional training in law

and education and other fields was limited for african-americans in the south. for instance, you really only had howard university. they tended to educate the largest numbers. most southern black students had to leave the region for professional and advanced graduate training. sometimes paid for by the southern state governments. in the years leading up to the 1954 brown versus board of education decision, small numbers of african-americans began to enroll in historically white colleges and universities. and after 1970, the majority of african-americans receiving higher education were enrolled at the predominantly white institutions. nevertheless, until very recently, the largest number of african-americans receiving graduate and undergraduate degrees received them from

historically black scompledges universities. as graduates of and administrators at historically black colleges and predominantly white colleges, the history makers dr. ruth simmons and dr. johnetta cole, their experiences provide unique insights in the history of african-american higher education in the 20th and early 21st centuries. suzanne: thank you, v.p., for your historical insights. really appreciate it. very helpful to open this discussion. i want to turn our attention to the panelists. first of all, i just to want thank you for joining us t. is such an honor to be with you both. i deprom a family of educators. my mother was a former head start teacher and xavier grad. my father, a former dean of howard university's medical school. i can appreciate the value of education instilled in me from early on when they both insisted, they said to me you can do anything you put your mind to and don't bring anything home less than a b. i got that. i got those lessons early.

with that, i want to get started here to both of you. just this historic moment. what are your thoughts, seeing a graduate of an hbcu assume the vice-presidency of the united states? i know people at howard are just cheering. dr. simmons? dr. simmons: well, i've said before -- first of all, suzanne and johnetta, it's great to be with you and to be able to have this conversation. thank you very much for inviting me. of course, i like to say with any firsts that they're a bit of an aberration, because it should be normal for someone like kamala harris to step into this role or any other role for that matter. and so the fact that we have to celebrate first, it's just one more indication of how slowly

our advancement is, continues to be. we should be -- we should expect this. our children should expect that they can ascend to these kinds of positions. there shouldn't be any question of that. but what do we celebrate so fierce that will we have made it to that point, it only reinforces the fact that we're still held back by the structures that created the unequal situation that we live with. suzanne: dr. cole? dr. cole: well, i am going to echo words from my dearest sister friend, the sister president ruth simmons, in saying it's a joy to be here. and thank you, suzanne, for facilitating what i know is going to be a really good conversation. and, of course, i must say

happy anniversary. it's the 20th anniversary of the historymakers. and so, sister founders, sister executive director, julianna richardson, thank you. thank you for all of this extraordinary work that and you your colleagues continue to do. well, when it happened, when finally a woman, a black woman, a woman of south asian descent was on the ticket, and indeed, will be the vice president of a major party and of our country, i jumped for joy.

and yet like ruth simmons, i did have to stop and say, why did it take so long? on the other hand, i strongly -- i appreciate, i feel fulfilled in a sense, because i am a black woman. in my lifetime, and it's been a long one, i finally saw the presidency of my country in the hands of an african-american man. and now to see the vice-presidency of my country in the hands of a black woman,

you know what identify been thinking? i've been thinking of a phrase that we used to use when we were kids. two kids in some dispute about something and the one child who finally made the definitive point would say i told you so. i told you so. [laughter] well, for 401 years, we have been saying the very notion that some people, because they have white skin, are superior to people because they have black skin, and nah, nah, nah, nah, we told you so about hbcu's.

but these institutions from their very beginning have been graduating stellar leaders, citizens, servants of the people. so, yeah, we told you so. suzanne: and i know those messages, the i told you so's, where they come from, our childhood and our parents and our relatives and our big communities and families, that we are raised in a way that we value education. and i'd like for each of to you discuss your very unique childhoods. you're both from very different backgrounds. dr. simmons, i'd like to started with you, because sour eloquent in what you talk about, what your own mother taught you, the lessons about people, never feeling inferior, always feeling that you could do anything you put your mind to. give us a little sense of your

background, where you grew up, where you fit in the sibling chain, and how this began for you. dr. simmons: oh, my. of course, i was bornt last child of my parents. 11 children had arrived before me. so in that sense, in terms of birth order, i was the least significant person in the family for a long time because i was the youngest. my parents were share croppers at the time that i was born in texas. and it was a hard-scrabble life. let's face it, shape croppers had what is called an extension of slavery. it was a pretty lean life. but i was quite blessed to have wonderful parents, parents who

had an eighth grade education, and who protected us at a very dangerous time, they protected us by telling us how to live in a sometimes violent world in which for no reason other than the fact that we were black could result in our harm. and so we have very strict guidelines as to how to protect ourselves, and i often say the great thing they did for us, 12 children, is that we all lived to adulthood. and that says a lot. that was quite an accomplishment for them. but in our family, the most important thing was to survive. it was to learn how to be in a world that was hostile, but even in that context, my mother taught us never to feel

superior to other people, to be kind, to be a concern about others. but also never to think of ourselves as less than other human beings. there was no aspiration within my family to get an education, because that was such a far-fetched notion at the time. occasionally we were able to get to school, but frankly, bringing in crops was far more important to our survival than going to school. but imagine when i did get to school eventually and find in the schoolroom an incredibly engaged teacher who started to give me a sense of the possibilities for learning. and i alza tribute that, my interest in learning, to miss

ada mae learned son, my first grade teacher, who imbued in me the notion that my mind could be expanded in myriad ways, and that furthermore, for the first time in my life, somebody told me i was smart. and that was very exciting to me. so that's where my journey started in education. at the hands of a teacher who knew how to encourage me, who knew how to open up the world of learning to me, and who knew how to say to me, no matter what's happening out there, you matter. you're smart. you're going to go someplace. so education often for our children across time has been as much about that encouragement as anything else. helping our young people to understand their capacity in a world in which they're constantly given signs that they don't matter, that they're

not smart, that they can't go. >> and dr. simmons, i know, too, that when you graduated from the top of your class, that you, in a sense, took this notion, i mean, this hope, this upbringing that you had of not being unworthy, but exploring outside of the united states, where can i go, where can i explore, to see where a different model perhaps of how blacks are treated, can you talk about that a little bit? dr. simmons: well, i had this idea, the first time i left home actually is when i went off to college at dillard university in new orleans. and i had this idea that i knew something was wrong with our country. the way that people were treated, that had to be an aberration somehow. and so the first opportunity that i had to go outside of the country, to look back at my own country, to assess what was going on, was an opportunity to go to mexico to study spanish.

at the end of my freshman yeerks i got on a bus, to the horror of my family. i got on a bus alone from texas and rode to mexico, where i lived with a mexican family. i studied spanish. and that was the beginning of a journey for me, a lifetime journey, to know more about the world and to be able to judge fairly what's happening in my own country on the basis of where what i see elsewhere. suzanne: i'd like to go to dr. cole. your experiences were really extraordinary when you read about it, when you hear about it, you speak so eloquently about it, about your great-grandfather and the influence that he had as you grew up in jacksonville, florida. so paint a picture for us, if you will, what he was like and what he demanded of you. dr. cole: well, i grew up in

those horrific days of legal racial discrimination. my life was ordered once i walked out of my home by signs and by notions that somehow no matter what i did, i would never be equal to those who could drink from the white water fountain. go to parks, go to museums. i grew up in the segregated south. i even remember a sign in a park that said no jews, no negros, no dogs allowed.

but inside of my home, and in the safety and warmth of my community, i was told that i could do whatever i set my mind to do. but i had to have a good education, and secondly, i had to work against that horrific system of segregation. i group obviously black. i grew up a girl. but i did not grow up poor. i grew up the great -granddaughter of abraham lincoln lewis.

like many african-american men born in and around 1865, he was named after the so-called great emancipator. he never used that name, though. he wanted to be referred to as a.l. lewis. a.l. lewis had a tough life. he was born in 1865. he was born of parents who had been enslaved, but he had a drive that was amazing. and with only a sixth grade education he went on to found, with six other black men an insurance company. this was 1901. it wasn't the first black insurance company.

it was the first insurance company in the state of florida. a.l. lewis became florida's first black millionaire. and by the way, my mom and my dad were constantly reminding us, myself, my older sister, my younger brother, that's your great-grandfather. we're not rich. but what it meant to be the great-granddaughter of a.l. lewis was that, you know what, class never trumped race. it didn't matter. i mean, sure, there were certain accommodations, but it ultimately didn't matter, and race is still unable to trump

in our country. suzanne: and with that, doctor -- sorry. dr. simmons. forgive me. i just wanted to tell this one little bit. dr. cole: a.l. lewis was a very religious person, and so after church, and it seemed to last all day long, the a.m.e. church seemed to last to a kid forever, but at the end, my sister and i got to go to a.l. lewis' home, and every sunday we did that as little ones, and every sunday he would remind us we can only play two games, regular school or sunday school.

we would play, my sister and i. my brother is much younger than i. and at a certain point he would come by, and he would say, are you ready for the test? and we'd say yes, papa, that's what we called him, and he would say what are the three b's that are important in your life? and we would recite the bible, the school book, and the bank book. the notion of education, for a man that only had a sixth grade education, was that it was the ticket for an individual and a people to a better life. and a.l. lewis, suzanne, i know

i said only 24 little bit, but you got to have one little bit more -- suzanne: please. dr. cole: a.l. lewis had a close friend. her name was dr. mary mccloud bethune. and through my great-grandfather, i actually met, would often get to go to daytona beach with my mom and my sister, and if she was on campus, my sister and i would go into the office of the legendary dr. mary mccloud bethune. it was something with my life, a.l. lewis and dr. mary mccloud bethune, they're going to come down from glory and haunt me.

suzanne: that's exactly what i was wonderly. what else the impact, that you had even at the dinner table, with your great-grandfather, bethune, and even in your young adulthood with dorothy. i mean, you had people who were mentors and heroes who were at your dinner table at some point. you had first access to those people. tchow that impact who you became as an educator? dr. cole: very strong influences. let me also say that my parents were atypical, and this will be a big plug for hbcu's. my parents each graduated from college. my mother went to morris brown as a high school student. she then went to wilbur forest

college, now wilbur forest university. my father went to knoxville college in knoxville, tennessee. so again, i would have to be ashamed of myself, i'd have to divorce myself in f i hadn't taken all of that influence and done something with it. >> and that influence that brought you from fisk, you graduated at 15 years old, brought you to fisk, and then to observerland. talk about that transition. dr. cole: well, i had these pushy, pushy black parents who believed in education like it said the devil believes in sin, and you know that's a lot of belief. so one day i was in the 11th grade, and they said to me, johnetta, you will go downtown

tomorrow, you'll take a test. if you pass, you go to fisk university. i don't want to go to fisk university. i wanted to be with my friends. i wanted to go to my senior year in high school. but like a good, obedient black girl, i went downtown and took the test and stupidly, rather than failing the test, which i could have done, i went, and ruth, you would have done the same thing, so don't laugh at me, ok? i checked all the right boxes. and off i went to fisk university at age 15 in an early entrance program. suzanne: you transferred to oberland. can you tell us why? dr. cole: it's a sad story why,

suzanne. the why is that i was my daddy's baby girl. and my dad passed that year. i was traumatized. and even though fisk was like -- it was like being dropped into an intellectual and artistic heaven, but i was traumatized. and so my scommom my sister talked me into going to oberland on an exchange program . my sister was a double major in voice and piano at the conservatory. i needed to be near family. and while there, i discovered this thing, this field, this discipline called anthropology,

which i couldn't even pronounce hardly, and i stayed at oberland in large measure because i had discovered a discipline, very much as ruth had discovered languages and culture as a way of understanding the world and yourself. suzanne: and you would take that to earn multiple degrees as well, advanced degrees, a ph.d., as well as a master's. dr. simmons, you attended the hbcu of dillard university in new orleans. then you went to harvard university, where you received your ph.d. in the romance languages literature in 1973. so talk about your path and what led you from the hbcu to then the romance languages at a ivy league.

dr. simmons: well, i think after my experience in mexico, i went back to dillard, determined to continue learning about other cultures. that seemed so much the key for me. again, my first year of college, the president of the united states -- it was not a very happy time in this country. the civil rights movement was burgeoning. there were lots of issues going on. and i was trying to find a way to my country. and so, to me, the path to figure out where i belonged and how to deal with the people who hated me was to understand how other countries functioned around the issue of difference. and so i decided to stick with

languages. and i finished dillard and received a fulbright fellowship and tonight france to live for a year. sort of an interesting experience to be -- to learn that the pervasive issue of race causes boundaries. that was fundamentally something that i eventually learned, because i ended up staying with an elderly lady, but i discovered that there was space for me in -- and i had a chance to move on campus. i wanted to get that experience. so i told her i would be leaving to go and live on campus, and then all of this racial hatred came out. from this woman, who was, again, a french woman, but i had that experience in france

at a turbulent time in france. the great revolution of that time was very instructive for me. essentially everybody was in the streets, everybody was protesting, and i got swept up in that as well. and so the impulse of students and of laborers in france to overturn a system, an elitist system in france was very inspiring to me. i came back from my experience in france, and then went on to graduate school at harvard determined to continue with my studies in language. it was an interesting and in some ways a cold experience for me, to be perfectly honest with you. harvard was not really a place at that juncture that was ready

for african-american students. there were protests there at that juncture. but it always seemed to me, in the midst of my education that the badge of being from an hbcu tended to color people's understanding of what you might be capable of. so i've always been very aware of that. so i remember one of my first classes when i got to harvard. it was a class in renaissance, and as they did in those days, they gave us something where you actually sit in class and you write an essay in french. and the professor was doing that as a way of understanding what kind of skills we have, because we came from all over the country to the classes. and so we completed our work, and in the next meeting, he

said that we were absolutely terrible. that we needed to work, do a lot of work in order to get up to speed on doing this. he said, however, there was one essay that was perfect, and he read it. and it turned out to be mine. the disappointment on his face when he handed back my essay and acknowledged that it was i who had written it was very clear to me, and in fact, for the rest of that semester, he barely looked at me. he barely spoke to me, he was so disappointed at the idea that i could excel at that level. that was somewhat my experience at harvard, going through, trying complete my fwrad wait dissertation, but understanding that i was marked. i was marked always an african-american. i was marked as the graduate of

a hbcu and none of my professors thought i would ever go anywhere. in fact, they admitted that to me later on, that they thought that this was kind of a pyrrhic exercise, my going to get a ph.d. in romance language and literature of all things, because blacks didn't belong in that field. suzanne: do you think that that has changed? weave seen kind of an evolution, if you will, of the leadership of president-elect, both of you, at the helm of hbcu's and that is becoming more common, as it is in predominantly white institutions. do you think that that notion of what the degree means from an hbcu has evolved as we look at the history of education among african-americans? dr. simmons: not nearly as much as it should have evolved, to be candid with you. because working with institutions today, this

emerges constantly. , and, of course, i can call out, because the experience of leading a major white institution and contrasting that with the way that my parents are treated or the way that prairie view is treated strikes me on a daily basis, and i have to point it out constantly to people that this is not what would happen, this is not the way another institution would be seen. so i'd love to say that we are beyond that. but i don't honestly think that we are. i was having a conversation the other day with the chairman of the board of a very elite institution who was trying to understand the current context, were there things that that institution should be doing with regard to african-americans. and i have to point out, well,

hbcu's offer a prime opportunity for your institution to partner on research and on internships and any number of different areas. and yet you fail to do that. so it's not what it should be by a long shot. suzanne: dr. cole, you were instrmental in and really at the forefront of establishing some of the nation's first black studies programs, both at washington state and university of mass after amherst. there's some institutions now that feel that by having these programs that they've checked a box, if you will, but give us a sense of what did that accomplish and what were some of the challenges there? because i know there is a frustration that you've talked about, about really even hbcu's embracing that ability for black students to learn about their own history.

dr. cole: of course, the 1960's was that period when, in a sense, the black power movement that was going on in our country got in cahoots with black students and black faculty. it was a time when whatever barriers had been erected between community and campus were challenged. and did i have the experience of being a part of the founding of one of the first black studies programs. this was at washington state university. ruth has said, and i just have to say what you have said, that it really did take a long time for us as black scholars to

insist on the relevancy of you're own experiences. and so to do so in the 1960's as scholars was really a revolutionary moment. it became a revolutionary movement to say that the canon had to be questioned. of course, it's true that across time there had always been black scholars who had lifted up the black experience, and i know we would all think of w.e.b. dubois. we would they have anna julia cooper, who insisted that when the black woman enters, the whole race comes with her.

but the notion that black folk were inferior, which was, of course, what was the explanation and the excuse for enslavement, and for long years of systematic racism, that had not been systematically challenged in the academy. and black studies as a movement did that. i also remember the day when i had to ask, if this is black studies, where are the black women? and obviously that led me into that interdisciplinary field of women's studies, only to one day ask myself, if this is women's studies, where are the women of color?

and so it's a journey that we're still on, a journey where scholarship must challenge any notion of the absence of full humanity on the part of any group of individuals. the black studies now has more, shall i use the word stability than it had in the 1960's, yes. but is it firmly rooted, centered in the academy? my answer would be not enough. suzanne: to both of you -- dr. simmons, first of all, it's not rooted in historically black colleges. and one of the --

suzanne: why do you suppose that's true, dr. simmons? today. dr. simmons: i think that it's historically. there's no question that the long journey out of enslavement and segregation traumatized african-americans, and there's no question that we were left with a sense that the grass is greener on the other side, ok? it's not unlike what used to happen in this country with everything european. american studies came quite late because the privileged european everything over what was native to the united states.

and so the maturing out of that colonization, you have to come to a point where you really do fully endorse the fact that you matter as much as everybody else. but our hbcu's sometimes did not understand how important it was for us to be the first to teach jazz, for us to be the first to teach our riders for us to be the first to teach african-american history and courses on race and so forth. and so one of the things that i've done to some people since may is to exist here at prairie view that that's the first and most urgent thing that we must do at prairie view. we have to teach african-american studies. and i think that that will eventually make its way around, and when you don't teach african-american steads in an hbcu, you're fundamentally saying that it is not our

culture, our history are not as important as the other cultures and history that is we teach on our campuses, and that is never going to be acceptable. dr. cole, suzanne, if i may, i'm thinking back to some very special days in my life, to years when ruth simmons actually came to spelman college and served as the provost. and i'm thinking of the struggle at spelman to turn the study of the great books into a different academic and personal experience for our students. and we call for something called africa and a.d.w.,

africa, the diaspora, and the world. it would replace what dr. beverly called the four w's in higher education. it was all about what's western, all about what was womanless and the third w, all about what was white. and so that struggle on an hbcu to replace the great books of the european experience with africa, the diaspora and the world, that was a real struggle. and so many of our hbcu's today , the study of our own

experiences is not there. suzanne: can we speak specifically to black women and the education of black women? dr. cole, you mentioned lucy ann stanton, 1850, received what they called a certificate of literature from oberland college, not a bachelor's degree, but the first black woman to graduate to an american college with a certificate of literature, because the female students were confined to what was called at the time the ladies' course, described to be less challenging than the male bachelor programs. and then we had the process of coed education take form. i want specifically for you both to address what bennett college, or spelman college, what do they provide, even smith college, what do they provide uniquely to black females, what they need in

their educational experience to be successful? dr. cole: i think i'm going respond, suzanne, with an experience i had when i was at spelman. i would hold office hours, and it made the president's office look like a sit-in, because you couldn't have an appointment, you just waited your turn. but i will never forget when one spelman student who had waited a long time, she was almost at the end of the day, walked into my office, and i said to measure, my spelman sister, i want to ask you something. i looked at your record, and it's really incredibly impressive. i mean, with your fwradse, with your community service, you could have gone to any

institution in america. what made you choose spelman? she looked at me, and she said, well, dr. cole, i am going to be an ass re physicist. -- an astro physicist, and i didn't want to have any professor looking at me and saying, or implying, honey, are you sure you can do physics? that's what happens at a women's college. nobody looks -- well, if that person does, they need to leave . you don't say in any way, by words or by implication, you cannot do what you have set out to do.

there is this expression. i thought about it a lot when senator kamala harris came into the spotlight of our country, on a women's campus, you see the truth in this expression, if you can see one, you can be one. when ruth simmons was the president of smith college, think about the number of young women, especially young black women who said, if i can see that in ruth simmons, i can see that in myself. suzanne: dr. simmons?

dr. simmons: well, i can't say it any better than that. it is, for women in general, seeing other women performing at the highest level is the greatest source of inspiration in terms of having the wherewithal to stick to your dreams, frankly. and i must say that when i arrived at smith college, i was very much aware that the united states had a problem in terms of women in engineering, and i understood understood so much why women dropped out of engineering and why it was still not a hospitable field for women.

so i called for the creation of an engineering program, and that seemed very important to me, because at a women's college, any field should be possible, because women need to see that any field is possible for them. and so although smith of a liberal arts college and faculty really questioned whether it was appropriate at a liberal art college to have something like engineering, we pushed it through and got it started. and i will tell you that today, when i visit smith, the women in engineering always approach me and thank me for creating engineering for them. because often they have felt discouraged before coming to smith about the potential of being able to do engineering at a very high level, and that possibility exists for them in

a women's college setting. it really makes all the difference in the world. my first recognition of what women might be able to do really came when i was a visiting student at wells leave. i'm the young nest my family, and my family was a very pate arkal one. my father was very dominant. i have seven brothers, and none of them thought that the girl from the family was important. and that was the message all the time to us. when i got to wells lee, and i saw margaret, who was president of wells leave, i was just stunned that a woman could be president of a college, stunned. and so seeing examples of obviously -- it makes an enormous difference for young people. i also had the experience of -- i think johnetta would say that

people thought of me as a very private person. and i didn't talk much about myself, and i think most people along my career path thought that i came to love an educated family, middle class background. i just didn't mark about it, and so people just know my circumstances. but when i was appointed president of smith, i think there was the "new york times" story that told about my background, and suddenly they started coming from around the country from girls, saying that , my goodness, if you can do what you're doing, i think maybe i might be able to do it. and so that was a watershed moment for me. i didn't understand understand fully how important it is for all of us as women to tell our stories. because of what it does for the girl to come after us.

and so at that point i decided that i needed to tell my story, and that was, i'm so relieved that i finally got it, but it took me a long time to recognize how important it was. suzanne: dr. simmons, to that point, in your leadership at these universities, you have really been at the forefront of breaking ground, and one of those examples was at brown university, when you confronted those from the past and presented who are financially supporting the university, the role in the triangular slave trade. i want to you speak to that. i mean, that is something that other institutions will have to grapple with predominantly white institutions, and what did you call for? were you successful in addressing that very important issue as it is a bridge from the historical perspective to now present day when people are

asking and demanding reparations. dr. simmons: first of all, my greatst teacher, my morks always said to tell the truth. and when the issue came up of what the ties of brown university might have been to the sleigh trade, my first thought was, well, we should pursue this and find out what the truth was. i didn't realize that so many people would be unhappy with the truth. but i found out pretty quickly. in fact, the day that we announced we were pursuing this issue, a good friend of mine, a scholar called me. and he said, girl, have you seen your mind?

she knew that all hell would break loose. not so much because we were pursuing this issue, but because i was a black woman pursuing it. i did not know that we had a party early restricted -- particularly restricted area in which we can work. i did not know i was supposed to stay away from certain things. i plunged in thinking, let's find out what the truth is. let's expose that to our alumni. it was pretty hairy at the very beginning because of the hostility toward me and the idea that i was doing that, that was a time when public safety sent

an officer to guard my house. here is the thing -- whatever we say about these special roles, it is true that we african-americans who are women, that at the same time, we are expected to carry out our responsibilities as ably as any other person would. had larry summers at harvard -- i would not have worried about whether i should undertake the study. ruth simmons at brown, i was not prepared to ask permission from anybody. we took longer because the reaction was so strong. we meticulously unearthed the

facts about what transpired when our university was founded, and what transpired, frankly, as the center of ship making, it was home to slave trading commerce. most wealthy people in providence were somehow entangled with the slave trade. at the same time, they had sent for a minister from philadelphia to found a baptist college. they all profited from slavery. that story had to be told. it was awkward for some people that i was the one to tell it because i was black, and because i was black, surely i had a purpose that was somehow

compromised. but we did an excellent study. it has become a model for lots of universities and institutions and all the enough, the most difficult thing i did it from has become the thing i am best known for at brown. the singular study that went around the world and set the terms for how we should investigate our history and how we should tell the truth. suzanne: there have been many periods in our history during -- they are actively people who are fighting to make sure they are supported at a federal level.

give us some recommendations in terms of how to the hcbu's survive. dr. cole: i want to thank you for acknowledging that this is a struggle, and it is a long struggle for our historically black colleges and universities. i am thinking about one of my heroes, who i referenced earlier, the founder of the thune cookman college -- the bethune cookman college, and the founder of the national council of negro league women.

there was a day when dr. bethune had to tell all of her students to go into the dormitories and turn out the lights because she had been told that the klan would march on her campus that night. the students obeyed. she instructed that when she gave the signal, the lights would go on because she would be ringing the bell. that is what happened. yes, that night, the klan road on. -- rode on. there is a long history of terror against folk who want to

learn. today, while we have hbcus that are making the list of america's best colleges and universities, we also have historically let colleges and universities that continue to struggle. if there is anything that i think that we as african american people and as american people must do, it is to take care of the process called education. i mean, you know, nelson mandela told us it is the single most effective way to change the world. suzanne: [indiscernible]

to support those institutions. dr. cole: greater resources, which need to come from ourselves, especially our alums. we have got to take care of our own institutions. resources must come from outside of our institutions. secondly, i would say, constant reinvention because we have taught in a given way back in the day is no reason we cannot learn to teach the fundamental notions but in a way that is

relevant to today. resources and constant reinvention would be the two things i would call for for solidifying our hbcus because -- certainly, we said this when i was in the presidency, if historically black colleges and universities did not exist, we would have to invent them. look what they do in terms of creating a pathway for african americans and therefore, a pathway toward a better america. suzanne: how do we preserve the archival collections of those institutions that promote such a rich history in our community?

dr. cole: we need to give our thanks to the history makers, to the work they do as an organization. to preserve the history and her-story of the african-american people. i wait for another one to pop up on my laptop. history makers telling me about the history of the picnic or the history of hbcus. it is an incredible contribution. what do we do about those most priceless thanks called papers, the papers of our scholars -- priceless things called papers,

the papers of our scholars. where will they go? we have not done a good job of preserving the material expressions of our struggles and triumphs. i can say i am intentionally -- intensely proud to have been a part of the establishment of the archives at spelman college that no will receive -- that now will receive on a continuing basis the paper about standing african american women. but there are so many collections that are literally going to cease to exist if we cannot find a way. by that, i mean, the material resources to preserve our own history and her-story.

suzanne: you mentioned mary macleod bethune and the klan coming. now we see the color of change and black lives matter and there are so many challenges for our students. what can we do to prepare our young people in terms of citizenship, to be engaged, to vote, to understand how to be impactful at this very difficult time of transition? dr. simmons: sometimes, hbcus have had an uneasy relationship with activism. we have been through a period

where we silenced our students, where we really disciplined them for their activism. there is a story where a young man felt moved to paint a mural that was very explicit about the political environment. he was arrested and was told he had to pay damages of $9,000, which he could not afford. he appealed to me and said, president simmons, i'm about to go to jail for a couple of years because of the fact i owe $9,000 and they have wanted to see me prosecuted for the mural i did.

you cannot go around painting murals on buildings, for god sake. -- god's sake. finding a way to channel his activism would be a better answer. i wrote to the judge and said please do not put this young man in jail. activism is very important for our students, especially how to learn to do it, how to be effective at it. what i have recently done is created a center, center for race and justice. the one thing i put in that center was an activist in residence. i want our students to be around

people that john lewis and others who have laid everything on the line in order to examine african americans. i want them to know the stakes -- mistakes they made. i want to -- them to know their journey. we ought to be teaching them how to formulate their plans for activism in a way that does not land them in jail. or if it does land them in jail, it is for the right reason. it is worth the risk. we also have a policy project to familiarize our students with the most transient issues -- transient issues -- trenchant issues that will affect their lives. the number of african americans

who graduate from college and go into their professional lives and that are surprised by the fact that they are treated so miserably and unjustly, it is appalling to me. why are we not preparing them for the realities of what they might experience? what we are trying to do is to bring our students through this center in the course of their time. finally, we have said that every student should have to take a course on race and justice. stoking the activism is not a bad idea. my students often ask me when i was a brown, why on earth did i have, for example, the courage to start the study of slavery at brown? as an undergraduate student i

was active and vocal and i learned from my earliest days how to tackle those issues and how to be in people's faces and how to insist that justice prevail. i learned to do it and became comfortable with it and all the way up through my career, it never fazed me to have to do that again and again. this comes with practice and we want our students to have that practice. we are at the seat of voter suppression and our students have been fighting for the rights as voters. think how long but has been going on in this country. voter suppression. it is going on this very day in

terms of trying to suppress the votes of african americans in the last presidential election. if we are not preparing our students to deal with these kinds of issues, we are going to have a long -- suzanne: we see another movement afoot as well, these calls for confederate statues to come down . both you and dr. simmons, you have buildings or programs that are in your names. tell us, what is the significance or the impact of that to have that be part of a new movement, a new recognition, a turn of history, if you will? dr. cole: we are continuing on a very long journey and i do want

to, if i may, just emphasize again the point that ruth simmons has made and that is that our campuses have not always worked with comfort around issues of social justice. we have got to learn to do that. including having courageous conversations about what you do with statues that glorify a period in american history that was centered in enslavement. we need leaders today -- sat down at that lunch counter and went to jail. every night, she went to jail.

taking homework she collected from professors and the next morning, she picked up the homework and passed it out to professors. what a statement of importance of their social activism, their commitment to justice. the necessity for their commitment to their own education. more directly to your question, it is a very complex notion that we take down stuff that is being deeply revered by sectors of the american citizenry. if we don't have conversations about this and reach some decisions, in my view, that says

there can be a place for these statues that praise by their association racial terror, that praise systemic racism. that praise enslavement. the place is not in the middle of the college campus. it is in a museum, where there needs to be very organized instruction about what that statute means. -- statue means. suzanne: i would like to address where we are today in terms of this pandemic. we look at the hbcus, i did my senior thesis about black

students who visited howard and ended up staying. they fell in love with the experience and the community. the question becomes, how on earth would online learning really duplicate that kind of experience that is very unique to black students when they are at hbcus as we go into a model that looks very much and online learning model? what is the impact today? dr. simmons: there is no question that much is lost in the current environment where we have all had to switch to online learning. we know that because our students are insistently telling us about their loss, their sense of loss, not to be able to

experience the socialization of the campuses. not to be able to grow intellectually in the way they expect by interacting with others who are going for the same type of experiences and doing it in a way that is fulsome. we know that a lot of our students, for example, are assessing whether or not it is worth it to be on a college campus because they are not getting the college campus experience. i think -- i don't want to minimize the importance of online learning. let me say this very clearly -- to our many -- too many people, online learning would be an option because it can afford

many people the opportunity to continue their education where they otherwise would not be able to. if you have a single mother who is working and does not have time to go to college, online education can be a useful tool for her. but, at the same time, think about what campus experiences mean to us. for somebody like johnnetta or somebody like me, if you ask me whether i would've been able to make the journey i've had if i experienced my education online, i could say resoundingly no. i remember sitting in a class with a music professor and we were listening to classical

music and we were having to memorize composers and a particular piece of music and so forth and thinking to myself, isn't this interesting? black people have produced a lot of music. why aren't we studying that? that kind of immediate interaction with stimuli on a campus promotes ideas and a lot of the ideas i carried forward all the way through my career have been stimulated by on-campus environments. when i was a guest student at wellesley college, we were one day in classical philosophy talking about apartheid in south africa. everybody had an opinion about it and all the students spoke out in horror about the

evil of apartheid. there was a young woman who raised her hand and said i am south african. and she began to defend apartheid in class. over the course of my time as a student, there are many experiences in classes that i don't recall. but i recall that because the stimulation you receive in firsthand experiences, face-to-face, is of a different order from what you experience simply reading a book or having courses online. that is what we are giving up if we don't have these experiences. the differences -- i am a child of poverty. i had very limited experiences. i did not have the ability to

seek -- see what the range of people on this earth are like. i once had a visit from the king and queen of greece, which they still call themselves, and i had tea with them and people ask me, how does it feel to have the king and queen for tea? i was perfectly prepared for that because i went through the experience of being socialized for all of these sorts of experiences because i was on a campus. our students who come from impoverished backgrounds need this more than anything else, frankly, and i would hate for that to be lost. i hope we can find a way to make online available for those who need that option but at the same

time not destroy the option that many of our students need, the on-campus experience. suzanne: i would like to open the discussion up now to our education makers, the advisory committee, the area of open education. this committee includes evelyn brooks, leslie baskerville, pearl richardson, the honorable joan m prince, and vp franklin.

i would like to open up the questions to our panelists. our first question will go to gensler prince -- chancellor prince. >> let me say, excellent moderation. you make us proud. to the fabulous, extraordinary other women i see in front of me , i need you both to know how proud you make us and how much our heart feels when we see you, even when you don't speak, we know you are there. my question is one of those probing once that we all -- it focuses on what we all have heard but people do not like to openly discuss.

that is the relationship between pwi and hbcu. i live in wisconsin. obviously a pwi. i have been speaking with colleagues for years across the nation and i have always tried to counteract what i call the elitist attitude of some pwi's that hbcus are less than they are from a research and academic tier. that was the discussion for years, if you want to be honest about >> having said that, a number of things happened that start to erode that thinking. katrina. hidden figures. at least they did watch the

film, right? an understanding that these hbcu's produced in the medical field, attorneys, mathematicians, astrophysicists. an understanding that at pwi's, the diversity of the faculty is not there. now come the discussion on many pwi's is, how do we partner with hbcu's, and in some partners -- some corners it is not about partnering, but about coaching. -- poaching. my question would be what advice would you give to pwi's who seek to partner with hbcu's, particularly around their approach and their intent? thank you. >> since i'm in the midst of this on a daily basis, let me at least get started.

i have a mantra i employ, in dealing with meeting institutions and corporations and anyone else who approaches prayer review about a partnership. what i say to them is if you are interested in tokenism,, and an unequal relationship, go someplace else. i am encouraging all of my peers at hbcu's to take the same stance. we have all, so often in our histories, we have been content with believing -- the leavings, and that has to come to an end. we are either good enough, valuable enough, to be partners, or we are not. and if you do not think we are good enough, then you should not

be in the business. the first thing that i say to leading institutions, white institutions, is that you are happy to have partners, in this effort. but only if you are willing to consider prairie view to be an equal partner. that means in decision-making. that means in the ways in which you formulate the path forward. one of the things we are experiencing is white institutions want to partner with black institutions, in order to get a leg up in competitive funding. and so many funding agencies have said clearly, you cannot hope to be funded, unless you have a partner, a minority institution partner.

even the white house initiative says, that all of the agencies of the u.s. government must have a relationship with hbcu's. so the pressure for them, is that they have to have this relationship. but, they often do not feel that they want to share the power in that relationship. so that is number one. when you approach and hbcu's -- an hbcu, approach with respect and make sure your intentions are the right ones, that is, that you want partnership. and not to continue a paternalistic relationship with an hbcu, which would be insulting, at least. second, the programs you offer for our students, must come of course, have the same kinds of provisions at the ones you have for your own students. so do not say that you are going

to have a certain programs for your students, but for those hbcu's students that are not as strong you are going to do something different. that, you should not do under any circumstances. finally, i would say that the most important thing is, not to come with a minimum resources. here is the reality of the hbcu's situation. hbcu's are typically, typically underfunded. that means they do not have the staffs that large white institutions have. one of the complaints you hear all the time from those institutions is, well, we tried to do this program with this hbcu but they were not responsive and we cannot get this done, we cannot get that done. of course you cannot. because they do not have the staff that you have. so one thing to factor in as you

are trying to start any kind of partnership, is to ask the question about staffing. to what extent are you able, given your resources, to be able to participate in this partnership? and if you cannot, based on the staffing you have, what can we do, to help staff up, so that you can participate on an equal basis? pres. cole: the only thing i could possibly add to what ruth simmons has so forcibly and effectively suggested is this. that a partnership really is about reciprocity. otherwise, again, it is paternalism. so if there is reciprocity, it does seem to me, that those who

are coming from pwi's have got to do the kind of inner work, the kind of transformation of their own thinking and learning, to entertain and ultimately believe that there are things they can learn from hbcu's. it is not a one-way street. where the pwi's, out of the generosity of their souls decide to come and help the poor hbcu's . historically black colleges and universities, i think can teach pwi's enormous amount about teaching, about the very process of using respect for where a student is, as a platform for taking that

student to where she can possibly go. our hbcu's, i think, have an enormous amount to teach about the experience that is outside of the classroom. some of that is in the lives of fraternities and sororities on our campuses. but there is something that happens at an hbcu that i think pwi's could well learn. and that is, how a college experience can literally affirm who a student is, in the process of preparing her for where she is to go. suzanne: thank you both. our next question is from mr.

baskerville. >> -- ms. baskerville. >> thank you very much. i would like to first thank giuliana richardson for her energy and leadership that has brought to us the history makers and now the world's largest digital archive of african americans. i would like to think you, susan -- suzanne for your explicit there -- moderating. and my two institutions' presidents for their enriching and inspiring remarks. i am always touched deeply and i stand taller because you are my leaders. i would like to contextualize my question. i know that 40 years ago, when dr. mary frances berry, one of our other education giants, was the head of the office for civil

rights in the united states department of education, she responded to a lawsuit brought by the national association for equal opportunity in higher education, the association i'm privileged to represent. it is the membership and advocacy organization -- association of all of the hbcu's and all of the pwi's. she brought -- we brought litigation, and after years of negotiation back and forth, she settled the case, an established principle that, it states that maintain dual higher education systems, one black and one white, the state much -- must invest in the hbcu's, so they are programmed or comparable, given their missions, their facilities, their salaries and the like. that was 40 years ago. in the ensuing years, many things have transpired, some of

which has led to the current state, where hbcu's are graduating 42% of african-americans in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, 50% of americans public education professionals, 52% of blacks in agriculture, and the list goes on. hbcu's collectively are punting way above their weight, and graduating the growing populations of the country. and yet, in response to a question suzanne malveaux put forward about what we can do in the case, because in some cases our institutions are struggling. what we can do is insist that america invest in hbcu's. that it is commensurate with their input and their outcomes. there is a case going on in maryland today, that is looking at that very issue. a case in which the historically black colleges sued the state,

because, despite the tremendous output, and despite the fact that organ state university, bowie state university, university of maryland east shore and coppin state university are graduating disproportionately more of the growing populations of the state, they are not receiving full funding. so what i would like to know from my leader presidents is, would you support the idea of either congress or the next administration withholding public dollars from those states that fail to invest in public universities, such that they are comparable to and competitive with their historically white colleagues? >> i will start. from a public policy perspective

, that is a very specific prescription. it is not the only one. so, would i support thoroughly the idea that states should be forced to fund these institutions appropriately? absolutely, absolutely. whether or not that is the right way to do it, i would not comment on because i do not really know, frankly, what would be the right way to approach at. but, obviously this is a continuation of very unjust circumstances. that should not be permitted to continue. there is no question about that. so i will, i am happy to say that in any venue, happy to say i think it is the right thing to do, to stop underfunding institutions. there are all kinds of ways states find a way to do that, by

the way. they find a way to do it because of the achievement level of students, right? they find a way to do it because of the disparate economic conditions which for students to have a particular path they think is not something they approve of, they find lots of reasons not to fund at the appropriate level, because they would rank institutions as not achieving in the way they specifically would like for them to be achieving. so i think there is more that has to be disclosed as unjust, in the terms of the way the funding occurs today. and i think the more information that can be brought to bear about that, the better. pres. cole: there is little to add other than the acronym that

you have stood with and stood by and promoted says, of course, there must be equal opportunity for our institutions. and that means funding. of course it does. so my answer to your question is the same, yes. but of course, it takes more than saying such a thing, signing a petition. it takes systematic and persistent organizing to make this happen. it is my hope, that in a new era that will begin in january, that the widen -- biden-harris leadership team will have a very

strong, very powerful, and effective position, and action on our hbcu's. how could i expect less, when that sister faiz president is a graduate-- sister vice president is a graduate of howard university? suzanne: thank you, a lot of people are feeling that way. i would like to bring in bob smith for the next questions. >> this has really been inspiring to me, having looked at this history. since society, particularly the judicial system, has cut off affirmative action as a relief for educating african-americans, the emphasis has shifted to providing african-american kids

with a good elementary education, so they can be competitive, so we can have a strong pipeline of students going to both pwi's as well as hbcu's. historically, hbcu's have played a major role in working with k-12 education, historically. what role can hbcu's continue to play assisting schools in strengthening elementary school programs, so we can have a strong pipeline of students coming into higher education,? and being competitive? >> well, one of the things that has been a great misfortune in higher education in the last decade, is a reduction on focus school education, and the trivialization in some ways of

the profession in regard to other fields. the rise of stem and other fields have in some ways because people to discourage students from concentrating in fields leading to teaching. and that is having a profound effect on society in general. so, and steady commitment to resources for our schools of education, at a steady encouragement of our brightest students, to go into education, it's so important. we have recently endowed some scholarships for the best students to focus on going into teaching. we have a number of announcements coming, that will make it easier for these students to feel they can make a living if they choose that path. in addition, we think the policy

direction is very important. we recently took on work with the state legislature here, in texas, to persuade them of what we think is the appropriate curriculum for students, as they come through public education. and that won't surprise you, relates to educating them about their history, for example, earlier on, to make sure they begin to have a sense of connection to that history, and a sense of confidence about who they are, in addition to all of the other things. so, from a policy perspective i think it is very important for our faculty to engage, at the k-12 level, in terms of the curriculum, certainly. also, for our students to be in the schools, giving these young

students examples of what they can do. and we spent an inordinate amount of effort, bringing these young people to our campus. we want, from the earliest time, for them to be socialized to the idea that that is where they are headed, they are going on to college. and we think that helps motivate them in continuing with their education, and enrolling in some prerequisite courses they will need, in order to study in some areas in college. so there is much that one can do. there is no one formula, in my view, that works. but you have to be engaged. it is simply too important. >> very quickly, to say our destinies are tied. there can be, in the future, note true success for hbcu's without true success in public

school education. and we are at a point in our country now, where there is more segregation in the public schools than ever before in some ways. it is done now by zip codes. it is done by, who gets the resources for this school because it is situated in this particular neighborhood? ? so the hbcu community certainly has to find more and more effective ways, to be in genuine partnership with educating african-american children, from k-12, and on into higher ed. suzanne: well said.